Performance Manager 1.0 RC1 is deployed, not installed, as a virtual appliance within VMware ESX or ESXi. A virtual appliance is a prebuilt software bundle, containing an operating system and software applications that are integrated, managed, and updated as a package. This software distribution method simplifies what would be an otherwise complex installation process.

Upon deployment, the Linux 2.6.32-based virtual appliance creates a virtual machine containing the user software, third-party applications, and all configuration information pre-installed on the virtual machine. Much of the virtual appliance middleware is built primarily with Java and includes several open-source components – most notably from (but not limited to) the Apache Software Foundation, the Debian Project, and the Free Software Foundation.

Sizing Performance Manager is based upon a number of factors: the number of clustered Data ONTAP clusters, maximum number of nodes in each cluster, and maximum number of volumes on any node in a cluster.

In order to meet the official supportability status from NetApp, Performance Manager 1.0 RC1 requires 12GB of (reserved) memory, 4 virtual CPUs, and a total of 9572 MHz of (reserved) CPU. This qualified configuration meets minimum levels of acceptable performance and configuring these settings smaller than specified is not supported. Interestingly, increasing any of these resources is permitted – but not recommended – as doing so provides little additional value.

In fact, according to December 2013 AutoSupport data from NetApp, most customers should expect to deploy a single Performance Manager virtual appliance; as one instance will be suitable for 95% of all currently deployed clustered Data ONTAP systems. Read more...(455 words, 2 images, estimated 1:49 mins reading time)